Jhasil's Story: one Romulan's account of the Fall
by njmrtl
Summary: Takes place sometime after the Hobus star went nova and Romulus was destroyed. Our hero, or perhaps anti-hero, is a Romulan dealing with the destruction of the Romulan Star Empire.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer. I don't own Star Trek or its spin-offs. I write solely for the pleasure of it and (hopefully) yours as well. I welcome any and all reviews. Happy reading!

Prologue:

Things were bad. The shuttle was more than damaged—it was altogether broken. Nothing worked, save the last laughable vestiges of life-support and the intermittent impulse engines. Marie was moaning on the mat laid out in the back. Jhasil knew she was dying.

He'd given up checking on her. She had withdrawn completely, and the sight of the pooling red blood made Jhasil feel sick. Her eyes were vacant and her grip had gone slack. There wasn't even a damned emergency blanket to cover the horror with. For the last hour he'd been staring out the portside window, his eyes as vacant as Marie's.

xxx

She died in the night. Jhasil wept but knew his grief was tainted with disgust at himself for not at least holding her hand as she slipped away from him.

Guilt, too; Marie had begged for them to make a run for it weeks before. If he'd listened they might have made it—both of them. But how could he have known that the baby would come so early, or that those blasted Orions would have stripped everything from his scout ship? Jhasil cursed every poor choice, every miscalculation. Marie was dead. And it was his fault.

He was horrible! He couldn't look at her, hadn't said goodbye as she left him. What was he? What had he become? He kept his eyes firmly on the stars. They were as cold as he now felt, and Jhasil couldn't tell if they were condemning him or were completely impassive. In the end, it didn't matter, for it was all the same.

xxx

She couldn't stay on board. The smell-alien's blood and still so strange-was unbearable. With extraordinary effort, given his current lethargy, Jhasil pulled himself to his feet and went to the scout's rear. Her eyes were open. He swept his hand gently over them until they stayed closed. They would open again soon he knew, but he couldn't help that.

Her hair was matted with drying blood. Jhasil sighed, ignoring the growing reek, and combed his finger through it. Over and over until it was smooth enough. Why did he have to cry? Crying was always bad. He shouldn't cry.

He would have to blow her out the airlock. His disruptor he kept hidden under the main console had been stolen, so he couldn't disintegrate her. The weapons, including the self-destruct (damn, damn those Orions!) were gone. The options were sorely limited.

He left one last kiss on her forehead, then carried her to the airlock, keeping his eyes on her face, away from her nakedness, her dead-pale stained legs, from the swollen belly, from everything. And when he released Marie and their half-born child into space, Jhasil wondered whether it was courage or cowardice that kept himself from doing the same.


	2. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek in any of its forms. I hope you enjoy the story. It should get lighter, and then darker, as the story progresses. I'm trying really hard to keep to Jhasil's limited 3rd-person POV, so if you see I'm slipping anywhere in regards to this, please let me know :)

Chapter One:

A week later, Jhasil suddenly realized that he was far from alone. A ship was gunning towards him, visible through the scout`s forward window.

He now wished he'd had more drive to fix up the cloak's wiring. Years ago, before his promotion to the Tenjua, well before the Fall and the destruction that followed, Jhasil had served on the Falcon's Revenge as the cloaking techs' supervisor. It hadn`t been a particularly glorious or even interesting assignment, but it had taught him a lot about the device. The cloak was easily the most complicated piece of equipment on a Romulan ship. The Orions' hadn`t been able to physically remove the system from the scout, however, as it had been encased in the pilot`s safe. So they had contented themselves with blasting the outside of it with their phasers. The outer wiring was fused together; still, with his training Jhasil could have managed something if had he not been so much in shock.

If Marie was still with him he would have done it. Nevermind the impossible power costs, he would have found a way.

And then this new ship wouldn`t have have pulled up beside him. "Starfleet." Jhasil gave the disruptor console an unnecessary glance. The screen was cracked. Had the Orions taken hammers to it? One button, to the left of the damage, was flickering sadly, registering the incoming hail, though the hardware that would allow the transmission to come through were now gone.

The button flickered urgently. Jhasil ignored it and turned to look directly out at the ship in time to see the shimmer of shields lowering.

"So they`ve scanned me and noticed: no weapons, no shields, no nothing except one weakened me," Jhasil thought aloud.

He tried to ignore the whine of the transporters and then the bark of the commanding Starfleet officer. "Cover him now!"

Then a phaser rifle was levelled at him from the side and a flick of the blaster urged him to slowly rise. Jhasil didn`t move and the soldier—a human woman with strange straw-coloured hair tucked up in a bun—carefully circled in front of him. "Up!" she snapped, and her eyes betrayed nothing of the Federation`s mercy that Marie had promised him. Jhasil hadn`t believed that, anyway.

"My God!" the Starfleet officer exclaimed from the scout's rear. It wouldn't have taken him long to come across the blood. Jhasil hadn't bothered to clean it up, other than wiping as much of it off his own hands and face. A lot had been left to simply dry, though it was still sticky. The security officer pulled out a federation sensor device and scanned the area. "It's old. What in heaven... What has that bastard done?"

The woman kept the phaser pointed at Jhasil's head, but glanced quickly to the back of the ship. "What is it, sir? What..." Jhasil knew by the way her voice trailed off that she had her answer. He wasn't surprised to see her tighten her grip on the rifle or see her then glare at him in rage. "You move one muscle, mister, and I'll shoot you to hell!" she spat, her mouth twisting into an ugly shape. Jhasil wished she wouldn't do that. Why did soldiers have to do that all the time, especially the girls—it ruined their prettiness. He kept his face impassive, keeping the thought to himself.

"Shoot him if he so much as twitches, Connie." The officer spoke, finally putting the sensor in his belt. "I don't want to see his sort sullying up the brig, even. It's a massacre back here."

"Yessir!"

The officer circled the scout and came to stand next to 'Connie.' Like the woman soldier, he wore a black uniform with grey and gold markings on the shoulders; he was human, too, but his hair was short and dark. He knelt down in front of Jhasil, who remained half-slumped back in the chair. "What did you do?"

But he didn't wait for an answer, be it forthcoming or not. After a cursory stare into Jhasil's eyes, he stood abruptly and tapped a badge attached to his uniform tunic. "Carter to _Titan."_

"_Riker here. What did you find?"_ A deep male voice crackled over the com-device. Jhasil thought it sounded familiar. Perhaps, though, it was the urgent authority that he recognized. Much like any CO he'd served under.

"Sir, we've secured the vessel, including the Romulan. It's safe to tractor her in. Have back-up security waiting."

"_Good work, Commander. I'm on my way to Bay 1."_

Carter studied Jhasil again. All at once he registered the fading bruises and dried green blood staining Jhasil's shirt. He hesitated, then tapped his badge again. "Med-team to Bay 1."

The scout shuddered slightly under the tractor beam. Jhasil held himself steady, not giving the trigger-happy Starfleets an excuse to fire.

And they were slowly pulled into the docking bay


End file.
